Monday, 30 July 2018

A triple header

I have had the cold from Hell so have not been very active for the past few days and thus not much to report. It is getting a bit better - in time for the drive home - and we did get to see a few flowers today. Here is some stuff from the last three days.

This photo really belongs to the previous post, but I hadn't got it off my phone then. The phone was attached to my telescope, hoping to catch a view of a whale offshore. Sort of where the x is.

I saw a lot of splashes such as might be made by tail slapping, one glimpse of a dorsal fin and the dorsum to which it was attached, and about three spouts. So there were unphotographed whales out there!

We next went to check out the heath under the powerlines, expecting there to be at least a good crop of Epacris impressa there.

Oops. At least they have done it before things flower and particularly before the sun orchids come up.

Frances found a few flowers of which this Correa reflexa was the most photogenic.

The moon was also pretty photogenic as it rose over the Inlet - making up for me missing the eclipse (which I think would have been hidden behind hills anyway).

The next day we did a very short walk on Betka Beach at the conclusion of which we spoke to this small fisherperson's minder. The minder reckoned the fish was ".. a pretty good salmon for the first fish the young bloke'd got on a beach."

Its just to the left of the rod. This shows it more clearly. Definitely one for a nice lunch or tea..

The moon rose again and this time I got it a bit lower

That gets us to today and we went for a stroll from Davis Beach through the heathland. Not much in flower except for an Acacia sp, and a few Epacris.

As we got close to the woodland an A. longifolia was well into bud.

This is a close up of the unspecified Acacia.

A pink Epacris. As always the red ones were impossible to photograph. (I don't know why the military paint 'stealth bombers' black: deep red seems to do an excellent job of confusing optics!)

The dominant plant here is Casuarina nana and on looking closely there were a lot of flowers lurking within the bushes.

The Hakea was at the other end of the procreative cycle having just exploded the nuts to expel the seed. Presumably this is the last spasm as the drought bites here.

Just before dark Frances looked up from the deck and there was chubby person. I am sure they were't in the trees an hour earlier.

I was a tad concerned whether the branches would bear its weight, but we haven't heard any crashes so I presume it knew what it was doing.